


catch me, i'm falling

by superfluouskeys



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Duskwight Elezen Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), F/M, Named Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), but ao3 didn't like the asterisks so pls use your imagination, i wanted to tag this, vague embarrassed noises, you know meaning that i was the one making them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-22 00:35:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30030339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superfluouskeys/pseuds/superfluouskeys
Summary: She could shatter the stillness that hangs between them a thousand different ways, but she wants it to come from him.  She wants to see what he will do.
Relationships: G'raha Tia | Crystal Exarch/Warrior of Light
Comments: 12
Kudos: 67





	catch me, i'm falling

**Author's Note:**

> Silly idea I got from a throwaway line in "swan song"—this story stands on its own but does assume an established relationship or previous encounter. Bless [this lovely discord](https://discord.gg/enabling-debauched-xivfic) for providing such inspiration and enabling my life choices!
> 
> lol anyway hope you enjoy bye! *tosses self into a lake*

This is stupid.

Adrienne is uncomfortably aware of her legs. It’s not that she’s cold, or even self-conscious, exactly, just that she doesn’t usually give any specific parts of her body very much thought, least of all for how they might _look_.

She turns around, glancing over her shoulder. The skirt is…very short. She’s never owned anything like it, never seen any reason nor had any particular desire. It covers her well enough when she’s just standing here in the safety of her room, but she’ll have to walk right through the heart of the Crystarium, after all, and what then? Is this too much? Is she being ridiculous? Perhaps she could achieve her ends a bit more subtly, she thinks, forsaking her mirror to return to her dresser.

She’s accumulated so many nice things in the last few months, most she seldom finds cause to wear, and though the practical part of her suggests that she really ought to pare down to what she wears regularly, as she always had before, another part of her, small and often too quiet to hear, rather enjoys the luxury of it, of being able to hang onto things she likes, but does not strictly need.

She roots through her small collection, tossing a few more options onto her bed, and doing her level best not to discourage herself from the endeavour as a whole. It may well be that the idea which drives her is fanciful in the extreme, bordering on the absurd. Certainly there is absolutely no cause for such a display, as her intended quarry likes her well enough as she is, and seems ever contented to bend to her whims.

Ah. But there’s the thing. Perhaps she’d like to bend to his whims for a change.

It’s only a matter of figuring out what those might be, given very little information and his dogged insistence that he wants nothing more nor less than whatever she wants.

So, yes, Adrienne decides at last, replacing the contents of her dresser with something like decisiveness. She will go to meet the Exarch wearing this…possibly ridiculous fragment of clothing, and perhaps she will feel quite foolish doing it, but then again, perhaps she won’t. She glances at herself in the mirror again, tugging down on the fabric of her skirt. If nothing else, she considers with some optimism, it will definitely get _some_ kind of reaction out of him. Whether it is the one for which she is hoping, well—

“Adrienne?” There’s a knock at her door. “Are you here?”

“Uh.”

Alisaie tries the handle. Adrienne considers that perhaps she should have locked the door. “Alphinaud swore he saw you arrive! I was—oh!”

“Don’t laugh,” Adrienne holds up her hands in a show of surrender.

Alisaie gazes up at her for a long moment. “I’m not laughing,” she says with the barest beginnings of a smile. “Where are you off to, dressed like that? Someone’s quite lucky. Oh—!”

Realization dawns upon her features, and Adrienne is sure she is blushing furiously. This is so, so stupid. She really should quit the matter entirely and just—

“Word is, the Exarch has all but locked himself away in the Tower since you left,” Alisaie approaches with arms crossed, grin growing positively cheeky.

Adrienne frowns, concern overtaking her embarrassment for the briefest of moments. “I hope he’s all right.”

“If he is, he certainly won’t be,” Alisaie needles pleasantly.

Adrienne looks up, wracked by doubt. “Do you think it’s too much?” she asks seriously. Young though Alisaie might be, Adrienne would trust her judgement, and perhaps more importantly, her honesty, over that of very nearly anyone else.

Alisaie’s features soften. “What do you mean, too much? You—“ she averts her gaze, almost bashful. “Well, you always look fantastic, don’t you? So what’s the trouble?”

“Oh, I just feel a little silly,” Adrienne lifts a shoulder. “There’s no point to it, really I just thought—“

Alisaie taps her chin thoughtfully. “You just thought—you’d like to do something a little silly, just for fun?” she counters. “I’d say there’s some value in that, wouldn’t you? Especially after—well, after all that’s happened lately.”

There’s a part of Adrienne that worries for Alisaie, that realizes just exactly how young she is, and how much she has endured. She feels compelled at any given time to wrap Alisaie up in a warm blanket and offer her a hot beverage, perhaps see that she’s eating well and getting enough sleep. But Adrienne herself was much the same at that age, convinced that she could hold her own and take care of herself in every possible fashion, and not a little resentful towards anyone who dared imply otherwise, no matter how noble their intentions.

And so Adrienne does her best to show she cares in a way that Alisaie can accept. “Right you are, Alisaie,” she nods slowly. She reaches out to squeeze Alisaie’s shoulder. “And thank you. That was what I needed to hear. But you came in meaning to tell me something, didn’t you?”

“Oh!” Alisaie startles subtly, touching a hand idly to her shoulder. “Nothing, really, I just heard you were here. “

Adrienne is reminded with a pang of the way Alisaie looked at her on the battlefield just before she collapsed, before she was summoned here. It’s been well over a year since that day for Alisaie, but little more than a handful of weeks for Adrienne. She takes Alisaie by the shoulders again. “I’m sure you’ve plenty to attend to here in the First, but…I confess I’ll be much happier when you’re back home.” Safe and sound, she does not add, at least out loud.

Truthfully, though Adrienne has plenty to attend to back in the Source, she can scarcely bear to be there. Everyone she loves is here. Here, or gone.

Alisaie smiles up at her, warm and assured. “All in due time, I’m sure,” she says lightly, and Adrienne feels a little badly for saying anything at all. She isn’t the one who’s stranded here, and the only person who can do anything about it is surely working himself into a stupor as they speak.

Adrienne squeezes Alisaie’s shoulders one last time before she lets go. “Did you have anything planned for tomorrow?” she wonders.

Before she can so much as make a suggestion, Alisaie interjects with a dramatic sigh. “Gods, I thought you’d _never_ ask—it’s been frightfully boring without you.”

Adrienne laughs, forcing the fresh pang of worry to the back of her mind. “Tomorrow it is, then.”

“Assuming you’re all finished by then,” Alisaie says airily as she turns to depart.

“Alisaie!”

“Have fun!” she waves as she pulls the door closed.

Adrienne glances over her shoulder into the mirror once more. Though Alisaie surely meant to tease, there is a very real chance that the Exarch has indeed locked himself away in the Tower since last she saw him. All other considerations aside, perhaps she isn’t the only one who could do with a diversion, however silly it might prove to be.

In the very worst case, she reasons, the Exarch might get a laugh out of it, and Adrienne would gladly suffer a great deal more than a bit of well-deserved embarrassment if it would put a smile on his face.

The idea in question had carved out a space in her subconscious on the eve of their most recent victory. Still a little stunned to learn that the Crystal Exarch was none other than G’raha Tia, Adrienne had been quite insistent upon ascertaining the nature of his feelings toward her. It was something he had said in passing, a handful of jests made on their journey to his quarters—but there had been passion in it, desire independent of anything she had expressly asked for.

G’raha has thus far been a sweet and gentle lover—indeed, she has never before been treated with such overwhelming care—but there is a hesitancy about his manner, an ever-present undercurrent of doubt and disbelief, of which she would sorely like to relieve him. She gets the sense that he is terrified of displeasing her in any way, big or small, apparently unaware of the special place he has ever held in her heart, and she always without the proper words to tell him.

Hand poised upon the door handle, Adrienne has another half of a thought to retreat, and yet another to cover herself just for the walk over, but that seems somehow even more ridiculous. The people of Norvrandt don’t have any reason to think that this is out of character for her, and it’s not as though she’s even dressed halfway indecently. She shakes her head, exasperated by her own hesitancy in the face of something so insignificant, and at last takes her leave of her Pendants room.

It had been night when she’d left Mor Dhona, driven to near-madness by the drudgery of her days set against the memories she’d left here in the First. Though the portal the Exarch made for her is perhaps the safest bet for traversing the rift between their two worlds, she had feared disturbing him, and called upon her connection to the Aetheryte instead.

Well, she feared disturbing him, and truthfully, the precise shape of the thoughts that plagued her left her feeling not a little frayed around the edges. She had a horrific image of appearing before him ragged and sleep-deprived, desperate and half-starved for his touch, and it frightened her, perhaps even more than it embarrassed her.

It’s a grey and misty midday in the Crystarium, and the fresh air goes a long way in calming her nerves. Though her clothes fit her well, she is acutely aware of how they move as she walks, and she does her best to pretend that it is of no consequence to her. She is being ridiculous, she tells herself for perhaps the hundredth time.

“Welcome, Warrior of Darkness!” the gate guard bows low before opening the doors for her. “I should tell you, the Exarch hasn’t seen anyone in weeks.”

Adrienne hesitates just inside the door. “Should I…wait here?”

The gate guard waves a hand dismissively. “Nay, milady, we were given strict instructions always to let you in without question. Just a—well, not a warning, exactly. I only mean it’ll be good for him to take a break, you know?”

Adrienne hums her understanding. “Thank you,” she says.

“I expect you’ll find him in the Ocular or the Umbilicus,” says the gate guard with another small bow. “Feel free to come back if you don’t.” The Dossal Gate closes behind him, blocking out the noise and the soft rush of the rain and leaving only the soft hum of the Tower.

For a mercy, Adrienne’s mind is too preoccupied with making sure the Exarch is all right to keep worrying about the way she is dressed. She wonders whether it is only the plight of the Scions’ stranded souls that drives him to such measures, or whether there is something else. Perhaps the thought of that something else, something unknown to her, shouldn’t be so unusual. G’raha Tia has lived as the Crystal Exarch for a little over a hundred years, after all. Even still, and perhaps irrationally, the notion doesn’t sit right with her.

“Exarch?” she calls out as she approaches the Ocular. But it is empty. She knocks on the door to the Umbilicus. “Exarch?” she tries again.

She hears rustling within. After a moment, the door swings open. “My friend! I didn’t hear you—“

The Exarch—G’raha Tia, older, a bit sharper about the face, and cut with a bit more crystal than she remembers—appears, and promptly falls silent at the sight of her.

“I—didn’t hear you come in,” he manages after a moment. “You…look very nice.”

“Thank you.” Adrienne feels herself smiling, feels all the doubt that had hindered her steps falling away. Whatever his reaction had been, she realizes, she is damnably happy to see him, and there is a certain sense of relief in it, too, in seeing that he is in fact still more or less all right.

“What brings you to the First?” the Exarch continues, poorly feigning lightness. He does not move. Really, this is so much better than she had dared to hope for. How she longs to see him come _undone_.

“I came to see you,” she tells him truthfully.

“To see me?” he stammers.

Adrienne inches toward him, leaning a hand against the doorframe. “I heard a rumour that the Crystal Exarch hasn’t left his study in weeks. I think he could stand to take a break, don’t you?”

The Exarch’s mouth hangs open a moment, his bright red eyes almost comically wide. “Yes,” he agrees, swallowing audibly. “In fact, I think he’s starting to hallucinate.”

A soft chuckle escapes her as she reaches for him, slowly, carefully. She can almost feel the tension rolling off of him as she traces the curve of his cheek with her fingertips. His eyes fall half-closed and he lets out a shuddering sigh. She could shatter the stillness that hangs between them a thousand different ways, but she wants it to come from him. She wants to see what he will do.

“Are you going to invite me in?” she prompts him gently.

“Right,” he startles. He very nearly jumps away from her, opening the door wider, that she may pass. “Please, come in.”

She brushes her thumb once more over his cheek before she drops her hand to trail her fingers across his chest. She can almost feel the way his eyes follow her as she passes by him and turns away, acutely aware as she is of the way her skirt rides up when she moves, and she dearly hopes that her choice of clothing is serving its intended purpose.

The Exarch clears his throat nervously. “Forgive me for saying so, but I—don’t think I’ve ever seen you wearing…anything like this, before.”

“No, I don’t think anyone has,” Adrienne agrees pleasantly. His study looks a bit different than she remembers it—she’s sure all the books have changed completely, and a chair has been hastily pushed back from a desk that she doesn’t remember being there before. Still, it’ll do. She sidles over to it and leans down to rest her hands on it, well aware of how much of herself she is exposing in the process.

If she’d thought of doing something like this before she made her way here, she thinks distantly, she’d have been absolutely beside herself with embarrassment. In the moment, however, heady with possibilities and the energy she can feel positively radiating from her intended audience, she doesn’t give her indiscretion more than a passing thought. “I chose it for a special reason,” she elaborates.

The Exarch hasn’t moved from the doorway. She hears him swallow again. “Oh?” he almost chokes out. “And…what was that?”

Adrienne glances over her shoulder, unable to conceal her grin. “I hoped you might like it.”

He really is a sight to behold. There’s a faint blue tinge to everything in the Crystal Tower, an ever-present glow that nothing can escape, and yet still it’s clear as day that the Exarch’s face is flushed bright red. His jaw goes slack and his lips form words with no sound, and Adrienne wonders if perhaps she should have considered the possibility that this might be a bit too much for him.

But just when she’s about to break and apologize profusely, he crosses the room in long, sure strides, stopping just short as she turns to face him. His hands hover somewhere around his waist, not quite reaching out. “You wore this…for me?” he manages.

A part of her feels downright bashful under his searing gaze. There’s still at least half of an apology caught in the back of her throat, or perhaps a timid _is that all right?_ But she glances down at his hands again, trembling from the effort to keep still, and instead of retreating, she steps forward into his grasp. 

“I did,” she tells him, as his shaking hands find purchase at the curve of her hips. She takes his chin between her fingers, delights in the way his eyes fall half-closed as she leans into him. “I came here, thinking only of you. I dressed just for you, thinking of how much I wanted you to—“

It is the Exarch, and not she, who closes the final distance between them, with a noise deep in his throat that could be likened to a growl. His grip tightens, pulling her staggering against him as he advances upon her, and perhaps most surprising of all, he lifts her easily off her feet to sit her upon the edge of his desk.

“Tell me,” he rasps into the crook of her neck, punctuating his words with teeth and tongue, “more— _anything_.” 

His hands, both surprisingly cold, find bare skin easily enough—he hardly needs to hike up the fabric of her skirt to feel the curve of her hip. Adrienne searches for words in a mind gone blissfully fuzzy. “I—“ she begins breathlessly, but all she can think of is how he is somehow still not quite close enough, how she needs every bit of him pressed up against her. “I couldn’t sleep, for how—dearly I missed you,” she manages, willing him impossibly closer with hands at his shoulders and legs wrapped around his waist.

The Exarch complies readily, pressing himself into her as he drags his tongue along her collarbone before traveling further down, nipping at the subtle swell of her breast just above the collar of her top. “And what,” he murmurs against her skin, “kept you awake?”

He is everywhere, and yet it is not nearly enough. Adrienne is not possessed of the Exarch’s particular skill for elocution amidst the throes of passion, and she struggles valiantly to form coherent sentences. “How I—wanted to see you, like this,” she gasps.

“Like what?” he prompts her. “Half-mad with desire for you?”

His hand is between her legs now, the friction so perfect she can think of nothing else. “You’re so—“ she tries, reeling. “You’ve got this…ironclad self control, and—ah!”

She cannot rightly say whether it is the soft breath of his chuckle that derails her train of thought so completely, or whether it is perhaps that he is pulling the fabric of her smallclothes to the side with fingers that feel cold as ice against her skin.

“Do I?” he wonders, his kisses growing soft and sweet. “I confess at the moment I feel I’ve scarcely a sliver.”

He looks up, his smile warm, his eyes dark with lust, and she feels she could lose herself right then and there. “Good,” she breathes. “All the better to dispense with it.”

He leans in to capture her lips, still with a touch of mirth about him. “As you wish,” he says. “But it would be a shame, wouldn’t it,” he continues airily, “to divest you of these clothes so soon, when you’ve gone to the trouble of wearing them _just for me?”_

Adrienne would prefer not to dwell on the indignity of the sound she makes. The Exarch presses another lingering kiss, which is very nearly a bite, to the swell of her breast before he sinks to his knees before her. She is already oversensitive, her body alight with anticipation, and the feeling of his tongue parting her elicits a breathy whine from her throat. Much as she’d like to grasp at him, she is forced to use her hands to steady herself as he works, curling two fingers inside her as his tongue finds her clit.

“Tell me more,” he entreats her. The shapes of his words against her send shivers coursing through her. “Tell me how it feels, what you imagined, anything, _please_ —“

“You’re… _so_ good at that,” she gasps, and she couldn’t say exactly what she means—good at forming coherent sentences while he’s unraveling her, most probably. “It’s—good you’re making me do this,” she tells him, squeezing her eyes closed even though she’d love to watch him, “think of what to say, because, _gods_ —“ she swears softly, reaches blindly for a fistful of his hair, “—otherwise I’d have come before you so much as touched me.”

“Look at me,” he says, and she just barely complies before her climax overtakes her, the perfect friction of his fingers inside her and the raw need in his voice more than enough to send her over the edge. He holds her hips steady as aftershocks course through her, tasting of her in long, slow strokes of his tongue and watching her with bright crimson eyes, until even that is too much for her to bear and she squirms away from him.

He pulls her up onto shaking legs, bearing her weight against him with ease. The Exarch is a slight man, smaller even than he was when she met him as a young man, worn a little too lean by the hard life he has led in the First. Adrienne is not heavy so much as she is gangly and unwieldy, and it is something of an unexpected treat to be held so easily.

Adrienne struggles to steady herself, dragging her hands downward over the elegant detailing of his robes until he stays her hands at his waist. “Ah, ah,” he chides her playfully. “This is what I want?” he asks, and though his tone is light, the question is serious.

“You catch on so quickly,” she teases, but there is truth in this, too.

“Then,” he leans in for another kiss, still holding her by the wrists, “if you would be so kind?”

He turns her around and bends her over his desk, folding her arms gently behind her back and directing her to hold them there. “You walked through the heart of the Crystarium like this?” he marvels, running his hands up her bare thighs. Adrienne shivers—how are his hands still so _cold?_

“Not exactly like this,” she quips, though the unevenness of her voice gives her away.

“No, I suppose not,” the Exarch agrees richly, touching her appreciatively through the soaked fabric of her smallclothes. “Even still,” he amends as he reaches up to pull the offending garment off of her, “I can’t help but think it’s a mercy this isn’t the style you favour from day to day. Captivating as it is,” she hears him duck down, thinking he only means to help her step out of her smalls, but he lingers there, and a luxurious swipe of his tongue draws a strangled cry from her before he continues to speak, “seeing you dressed up like this and knowing I could never have you? I think I’d have expired on the spot.”

Adrienne lets out a strained chuckle, digging her fingers into her arms to keep herself still. “You could’ve had me any time you—“ Her teasing quickly dissolves into a string of colourful expletives when he begins fucking her with his tongue. It’s an entirely different sensation, magnified tenfold when he brushes his thumb lightly across her oversensitive clit.

“Go on,” he affords her a moment’s respite only to mock her. “Tell me.”

And damn her, she tries. “I don’t think—“ she inhales sharply as he returns to his previous task “—you have the faintest idea what you were like at first, all that—power and mystery, just beyond your—“ she cries out as he picks up his pace, very nearly forgetting what she was talking about, and definitely forgetting why she was bothering to talk at all.

He stops cold. Adrienne feels dizzy.

“My what?” he prompts her, wicked grin apparent in his voice.

“Gentle demeanor,” she says drily.

He rewards her with a warm chuckle pressed against her skin, followed by kisses with so much bite in them that they draw a yelp from her. When at last he returns his attention to his previous task, Adrienne is beside herself. She tries her level best to grind against him for more, despite having absolutely no leverage to do so.

“Did you like that?” he asks her as he draws lazy circles over her clit. It is all she can do not to whine, not to beg him shamelessly for release. “Could you come for me, like this?”

“Gods, fuck, _yes_ ,” Adrienne very nearly sobs, and mercifully, the Exarch relents. She cries out with abandon, and her whole body begins to tremble as her climax builds. She’d like to say something, anything, for how it seems to delight him when she struggles to speak, but then again, she supposes her incoherent wailing is clear enough.

She’s certain every muscle in her body tenses when she reaches her peak. Her toes leave the floor, and the broken syllables of _Raha_ catch on her tongue. Just when she’s sure she can bear no more, the Exarch relents. He comes up behind her to press sweet kisses into her shoulders, his cool hands steady and soothing upon her arms. She can just barely feel the hard length of him brushing up against her backside, but she lacks the strength even to try to push herself closer.

“Is it too much?” he asks her between feather-light kisses. “Would you like to—“

“No,” she breathes, desperate to hold him there, to draw him closer. “Take me, please, just like this.” Overstimulated as she is already, she fairly trembles with anticipation.

The Exarch presses his lips to her shoulder once more, slow and contemplative. He inhales as though to speak, but hesitates. He skims his hands lightly over her arms again, sending a wave of pleasant tingles coursing through her.

“What is it?” she asks him after a moment.

She hears the way his lips part to speak again, yet still he hesitates. “Would you…ask me again?” he breathes. Then, lower, darker, “Would you _beg_ for me?”

By the _Twelve_ , she’ll come apart in an instant when at last he shows mercy upon her. Ready though she’d been to beg him of her own accord not a moment prior, now that he’s asked, there’s a part of her—foolish, to be certain, but no less insistent for it—that longs to get it just right for him, and the fear that she won’t stays her tongue for just an instant too long.

“Gods, forget I said—“ the Exarch bows his head low, apologetic kisses against her spine, and she’s sure he’d tear himself apart if she allowed it to continue.

“Please,” she stops him hurriedly, and in doing so, banishes the worry from her own mind by force. She closes her eyes, and somehow that feels easier. “Please, take me, just like this. I…I need you, inside me.” His sharp intake of breath and his fingers suddenly digging into her arms hearten her significantly. “Please, Raha,” she amends, and feels herself smiling, “fuck me.”

She can feel him gasping against her, can hear the rustle of fabric when he relinquishes his hold on her, and by the very stars above, she could swear there is nothing so exhilarating as the feel of him against her, parting her, pressing ever so gently into her. When next she speaks, it is most assuredly not because he asked her to. “Oh, gods, _please_ ,” she very nearly sobs.

He eases into her with agonizing slowness, a shuddering sigh against the nape of her neck followed by the softness of his lips and the gentle scrape of his teeth. “Tell me,” he breathes against her neck as he moves in her, “that you want me.”

“Like nothing else,” Adrienne swears.

The Exarch drags his hands down her sides once more. He pushes the fabric of her skirt up around her waist before he settles his hands upon her hips, holding her steady as he begins to thrust into her. Adrienne cries out with abandon, and she moves to unclasp her hands from behind her back, meaning to find some purchase upon the Exarch’s desk. 

But he catches her arms, lightning fast, and holds them in place firmly. The sharpness of his movement, so at odds with his usual gentleness, sends her head spinning.

“Tell me I’m the _only_ one you want,” he rasps, leaning into her, “even if it isn’t true.”

“Oh, gods, Raha, it is true,” she cries, though she’s not sure all the words are intelligible.

“No one else?” he presses, his voice ragged and broken as his movements grow frenzied. “You wouldn’t do this for anyone else, just for me?”

“Only you,” she tells him, over and over as her climax builds, “only you, only—! _Raha!”_

Some time later, when the Exarch is helping her up and into a proper chair and Adrienne is beginning to come to her senses, she considers that she must have been very loud, and feels just the slightest pang of embarrassment.

“I dearly hope the guard outside didn’t hear me,” she remarks, relaxing into the Exarch’s rather uncomfortable desk chair.

The Exarch chuckles breathlessly as he comes to kneel before her, looking up at her with the sweetest of smiles. For as much as the Exarch might be a rather different person than G’raha Tia once was, that smile is pure G’raha, and seeing it aches and soothes in equal measure. “Will you reproach me,” he wonders richly, taking both of her hands in his and bringing them to his lips, “if I tell you I rather wish he had?”

Adrienne laughs, but she cannot bring herself even to pretend to object. She frees one of her hands to push his hair out of his face.

The Exarch, or perhaps just G’raha, presses a dozen more kisses to her captive hand. She marvels at how such a simple thing renders her far more flustered than it rightly ought to. “Did you really do all of this just…just for me?” he asks her, almost shyly, in spite of everything.

Adrienne affords him a look of polite incredulity. “Of course I did, you absolute fool. Where else do you think I’d have gone, dressed like this?”

G’raha shrugs amiably. “’Tis well-known that the Warrior of Light took many a starry-eyed lover into her thrall,” he says. “I should only feel so lucky as to earn a modest footnote among them.”

Adrienne shakes her head slowly, thinking of the words he’d rasped into her shoulder not a few moments prior. “You really think,” she cups his face in her hand, “that anyone else could ever hold a candle to you?”

But G’raha’s good humour is unaffected. “I meant no offense,” he tells her, in the sure and soothing tone of the Exarch. “Nothing pleases me more than the honour of entertaining your company, as you well know. But there’ll be no hard feelings from me if you should one day decide that my company is no longer enough to satisfy you, in…this way, or in any other.”

He speaks the words with such ease, with such certainty that she almost believes him, even in spite of all that has come before. But she bites back her own hurt and slides down onto the floor with him. She steadies herself on his shoulders to settle herself into his lap. He accommodates her willingly, but for a mercy, his cool façade cracks rather magnificently, and he is her adoring, wide-eyed lover once more.

“And if I should decide,” she wonders, draping her arms about his shoulders and leaning in close, “that no other could ever satisfy me even half so well?”

G’raha’s tongue darts across his lips, and his fingers dig into her waist. “Then,” he breathes, “I am… _ever_ at your service, for the rest of my days.”

Adrienne kisses him soundly, and he allows himself to fall back onto the floor beneath her. Though she’d previously thought she couldn’t possibly take any more, his hands slide down to grasp at her bare hips, and he begins moving her against him, pressing himself up into her. But far more than the delicious friction between her legs, it is the look upon his face, the awe and the softness of his hazy smile as he gazes up at her that ignites the flame all afresh, and she burns with desire for him as though she’d never once known his touch.

‘How long can you stay?” he asks her.

“Until tomorrow, at least,” she says.

“Good,” he grinds himself up against her, and a _dreadfully_ charming smirk plays upon his features. “I do hope you’re not tired already.”

“Me?” Adrienne laughs against his lips. “Who among us hasn’t left his study in weeks, if the rumours are true?”

“Shameless gossip,” G’raha counters dramatically. “If indeed the Exarch couldn’t be bothered to abandon his work for…a few short weeks, well, then, it was only for want of suitable inspiration to do so.”

“Is that so?” Adrienne wonders drily, but her tone is somewhat offset by the fact that she cannot quite manage to stop beaming down at him like a lovesick fool.

“Indeed,” G’raha nods with an equally poor attempt at seriousness. “So, if the Warrior of Light would bid him rest, she’ll just have to come back and tell him, herself, won’t she?”

He pulls her hips forward and arches up into her again, and whatever Adrienne meant to say by way of retort dies on her lips, replaced instead by a shuddering gasp. “Yes,” she agrees breathlessly, “I suppose she will.”


End file.
